


Secret Agent Santas

by SaraNoH



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Feelstide 2013, Fluff, M/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:32:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraNoH/pseuds/SaraNoH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The agents on the Bus are tasked with delivering Christmas presents to the Avengers.  And some tidings of Phil being alive might be thrown in, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret Agent Santas

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second Feelstide fic for the holiday season. The prompt for this story was “The Bus becomes Santa’s sleigh for Christmas Eve.” 
> 
> I did a bit of liberty with that and decided the bus only needed to deliver six presents.
> 
> Thanks as always to **the_wordbutler** for demanding words from me so I can keep motivated to write. And then cleaning them up when I finally get them on the page.

The team looked over the map of the world and the six dots highlighted on it. It was Ward who complained first. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he muttered under his breath.

“I’m a very serious person,” Agent Coulson answered. “You should know this by now.”

“I think it’ll be fun,” Simmons offered with her usual bright smile. “Taking a little break from all the action to play Saint Nick.”

“Why us? And why them?” Fitz questioned.

“They’ve had a difficult time,” Coulson answered quietly before shrugging. “Sending a little goodwill their way won’t hurt anything.”

“So, what, we hand them presents and say ‘Merry Christmas from Santa?’” Skye asked.

“Say what you want,” the handler answered. “You can say you’re with SHIELD if you want, but you cannot let them know I’m involved—let alone alive.”

May quirked an eyebrow. “I think knowing that would be enough of a Christmas gift for a few of them.”

“None of them are level seven,” Coulson sighed. “We follow the system.”

Skye waved a finger in FitzSimmon’s direction. “They’re not level seven either. Pretty sure they’ve figured out you’re not dead.”

The senior agent shot her an exasperated look. “You will say nothing.” She raised her hands in a motion of surrender before pulling an imaginary zipper over her lips. Coulson turned his attention back to the glowing table they all stood around. “You each have your assigned member of the Initiative.”

“And what are we supposed to get them?” Ward asked, his tone making it obvious that he would rather wade through a river of toxic materials than go play secret Santa.

“Use your best discretion,” Coulson answered. “I’ll be in my office. We’re to have this done in three days’ time. Let me know if that will be an issue; otherwise, I’ll be catching up on paperwork.”

Skye watched him walk away and jog up the spiral staircase to his office. “So are we taking bets on what has his panties in a wad?” She shrugged off Ward and May’s glares and tried not to smirk at Fitz cringing at the word _panties_.

Simmons pulled a tight smile, and Skye easily recognized her _use small words to explain the situation politely_ expression. “Like most senior agents of his caliber, most of the people Agent Coulson sees and interacts with are his co-workers. They are people he has to trust with his life and vice versa. I imagine it would be extremely difficult to exist without letting them know you’re alright.”

“So,” Skye said, pulling the word like taffy. “We’re totally going to tell ‘em he’s alive, right?”

“No,” Ward chastised. “We have our orders.” He turned to May for support, but she kept her eyes on the map glowing before them.

“I’m in,” she said after a minute.

“You can’t be serious,” he argued as FitzSimmons shared an excited look between them.

“I’m a very serious person,” she parroted.

Skye clapped her hands in excitement. “We should make it a contest. Who can lead them to figure things out fastest without explicitly telling them he’s alive? That way, we can still say we followed orders and all.”

Ward shot her a look. “Please tell me you treat my orders with more respect?”

She grinned back. “I’ll tell you anything you want.”

May punched a series of commands to the table. “We’re changing course for New York. FitzSimmons, you’re up.”

Skye monitored everyone’s locations and listened in on their comm channels as they went about their mission. She set up an algorithm to time how long it took members of the Initiative to put two and two together, and had the others double check the code to make sure she wasn’t cheating.

Fitz was the first to go. He and Simmons were deposited at Stark Tower, where Jemma would later meet with Doctor Banner. Leo brought along the Night-Night gun, requesting Stark’s help as an official SHIELD consultant to help him shave an ounce off of the weapon’s weight to appease Agent Ward’s grumblings. The pair of them spent two hours until the cover task was complete. Along the way, Fitz dropped as many hints as he could, including how his boss loved to watch _Supernanny_ marathons in his downtime. But nothing he said led Stark to any conclusions.

Jemma didn’t have any luck either. She tried to get Doctor Banner to open up how to help her “friend” who’d gone through a recent life change deal with life in a body that was his but wasn’t all at the same time. Either her accent confused him or the line of questions did. Whatever the case, she was disappointed she’d blown her chance and not only spreading some holiday cheer, but also getting to know the illustrious Doctor Banner.

The pair of them were escorted out of the building by Pepper Potts herself. “I want to thank you for what you’re trying to do,” she explained as they rode the elevator down to the lobby. “But they’re scientists; they have to figure things out on their own.”

“Wait,” Fitz said over the comm. “You know?”

“That Phil is still alive?” Skye wished she had a visual of the CEO’s face just from the sound of the amusement in her voice. Odds were great that FitzSimmons had some pretty great expressions going on, too. “Of course I know. We text a couple of times a week.”

“But you’re not a SHIELD agent,” Simmons pointed out, confusion evident in her voice, “let alone someone with high enough clearance.”

There was a pause before Miss Potts wished them a Merry Christmas and walked away. The comm line was then overrun with overlapping dialogue between the two scientists debating about whether or not Pepper Potts was a SHIELD agent.

Next up was Ward. He’d been assigned Thor, who was in New York visiting while Doctor Foster presented at a conference. Skye tracked the Asgardian, dressed as one of his beloved Midgardians, at a seedy bar on the west side. Ward muttered under his breath that Thor was alone and occupying a back booth. When he approached, a warning came clearly over the comms. “I am not in the mood for company.”

“My name is Agent Grant Ward, and I’m with SHIELD.”

“I have yet to decide whether or not your agency does more good than harm, but I know my family has put you and your fellow agents in danger, so I will let you join me.” 

The sound of a mug of something scooting across the table sounded in Skye’s ear. “I’ll stick with water,” Ward said.

“You will drink or you will leave.”

“Then drinking it is.”

Ward opened the conversation by talking about the team’s recent encounter with the Asgardian in Portugal and the staff that doubled as a weapon imbuing humans with supernatural strength.

Thor sighed heavily. “My people have caused enough pain to this planet. I will add it to the list of things I should make amends for.”

“About that,” Grant said. “There’s one name that shouldn’t be on there.” There was a long pause over the comm channel before the agent elaborated. “Our records of the events on the helicarrier just prior to the Battle of New York have been amended since you last checked them.”

Another silence was broadcast before Thor asked in a hushed voice. “The Son of Coul? He lives? But how?”

“That particular answer is for someone above my paygrade.”

Once Ward returned to the Bus, May took off and set course for DC. Once on the ground, she announced she had a bakery to stop at before killing two birds with one stone and meeting with both Rogers and Romanoff.

“Why does she always use cookies?” Simmons asked as the remaining four of them gathered around the holo-table to watch May’s progress.

“And why does she never share with us?” Fitz grumbled.

They watched the blip representing May’s location travel to what was labeled as a SHIELD safe house. The comms picked up her knocking on a door followed by a phrase in a foreign language only Ward understood; he informed the group that it roughly translated to _The bluebird wants a cracker_ and more than likely served as a passphrase.

His assumptions were proven correct when Skye heard the door open followed by a woman’s greeting. “May? What are you doing here?”

“Heard you’d been on the road for a while. Thought you might like a taste of home.”

“I’m fine,” Romanoff replied in quiet tone.

“You sure? I know you used to get them all the time. You liked them then.”

“I said I’m fine,” she said curtly. “Why are you even here, May? I thought you’d stay behind your desk until the end of time.”

“New boss,” May answered around what sounded like a mouthful of cookies. “Old friend, new boss to be exact. Giving me the opportunity to do something I always wanted to.”

“Cheater!” Fitz shouted. “We’re not allowed to bring Agent Coulson into conversation, she cheated.”

Simmons rolled her eyes. “We couldn’t even get Doctor Banner and Mister Stark to realize what we’re talking about. There’s no way we can win the contest anyway.”

“We can if we eliminate the competition.”

“Hush,” Ward ordered.

“In fact,” May continued, showing once again that she did whatever she damn well pleased, “said boss is the one who introduced me to that bakery. Sure you don’t want a cookie?”

“You’re lying.”

“Nope.”

“May, I was at his funeral. I saw his dead body.”

“Well, I’ve seen his live one, so I don’t know what else to tell you. Rogers around here?” May asked.

“It’s his shift to sleep.”

“Pass the message along, will you?”

Skye counted May’s steps and knew she must’ve reached the door when Romanoff called out, “Why hasn’t he contacted us?”

“Give him time,” she answered.

Once May returned to the Bus, she set course for New Mexico. It was Skye’s turn to deal with Agent Barton. The archer had been assigned to watch over the clean-up and rebuild of the SHIELD station that was lost when Loki first appeared. During the few hours it took for them to cross the country, Skye laid some breadcrumbs she knew the SHIELD agent would have to follow.

It had taken some digging to discover at least some of the ties Agent Coulson had to the man known as Hawkeye, and Skye was grateful to have this opportunity as a cover for something she’d already been planning on getting Coulson for Christmas. 

Once she started digging into Barton’s file and tracking his movements, she noticed he had a penchant for searching for cars that matched Lola’s description. Skye herself had intercepted an inquiry or two just to see how serious the man’s interest was. And as they flew across the south to reach New Mexico, Skye posted an ad that offered sale of a car that would sound very familiar to Barton. He responded to her post thirty minutes before they touched down. 

Skye set up their meeting in a diner that was nearby to where the SHIELD facility was being rebuilt, not that she was supposed to know that particular detail. She had to admire her boss’s taste when Barton entered. She gave him a little finger wave and he walked over to her booth.

“You got any pictures?” he asked. She pulled up several images on her phone and held them out for him to inspect. He stared at the phone for a couple minutes to check, Skye assumed, for tiny details that would confirm its identity. “You need to listen to me very carefully,” he threatened in a low and dangerous tone that immediately caused a spike of fear in Skye’s gut. She ignored Ward urging her to get out or give up the gambit in her ear and nodded her head. “I don’t know who you are or where you got the car—“

“It’s not mine. It’s my boss’s,” she explained quickly. “He doesn’t know I’m here. In fact, he’d probably shoot me himself if he did.”

“Who’s your boss? And how did they get that car?”

“I can’t tell you either of those answers. The first because I was ordered not to, and the second because I don’t know how he got his hands on Lola.”

Barton stilled at the name. “He calls her Lola?”

“Yeah,” Skye breathed, feeling somewhat relieved and now cursing herself for trying to play games with someone labeled as a master assassin. “I can take you to the car.”

“I’m more interested in her owner.”

She nodded. “I can do that, too.”

Skye drove them back to the bus in the car she’d rented at the airport under one of her many aliases. She led him up the cargo bay ramp and he trailed his fingers along Lola’s side as he walked by the car. “Umm, he gets a little pissy when people touch his car.”

“Oh,” he said with a devious smile. “I know.”

“Gross,” Skye muttered under her breath.

The rest of the team, sans Coulson, came down the stairs to the cargo hold, and Ward was unsurprisingly the first one to chide her. “What are you doing bringing him here? Do you know how much trouble all of us could get into?”

“He followed me?” Skye tried to reason in an overly innocent voice. All it did was cause Ward to roll his eyes.

“Barton,” May greeted with a nod.

He nodded back. “Tasha gave me a heads up. Didn’t think she was serious. Where is he?” he asked quietly, hope and trepidation mixed on his face.

“Keep going up,” May answered. “He’s locked himself away in his office.”

A smile crossed the agent’s face at that. “Nice to know some things haven’t changed,” he said as he began to bound up the steps. He stopped when he was almost out of sight and turned to point at Skye. “He’s going to skin you alive for this. You know that, right?”

She shrugged. “Worth it.”


End file.
